Who’s the fairest of them all?

A bedrock principle in the U.S. Constitution is that people should be treated fairly in our courts. And that extends to fair treatment by law enforcement. Many can question how well this was always done over the years, but we generally like to believe our legal system provides fair justice under the law. We’ve seen the statues of the blindfolded woman holding the scales (and a sword).

Our federal legislature — House and Senate — uses committees to conduct hearings on all manner of things. This falls under the name “oversight.” In some ways, hearings conducted by these committees bear some resemblance to a court of law.

There is furor now raging in Washington over fairness. Members of one political party are charging that personnel in the FBI and/or Justice Department are trying to hobble the administration of the current president.

Look at the simplest basics. Democrat Hillary Clinton wasn’t charged by the FBI for using a personal email server against State Department regulations and that resulted in confidential data being compromised. Most Republicans (and others) are certain she should have been. Some who are members of or witnesses in the Mueller investigation were involved in the investigation and decision that allowed Mrs. Clinton to “get a pass.” Texts between an FBI investigator and an FBI attorney indicate their personal dislike of the current president — and other people. And there was a five-month period in which text messages of these two people cannot be found.

So the charge is that members of the FBI and Justice Department have and still are deliberately allowing their personal and political antipathy toward the president to trump their responsibilities under the law.

“This is pure partisan politics. The president cannot possibly receive fair justice. Thus, the Mueller investigation (that might or might not extend into the White House) must be stopped — immediately!”

And who is relentlessly making this charge of partisan political bias? It is members of the same political party as the current president.